This camera was second choice to the Canon powershot. I did my research online and found a lot of pleased consumers, so I decided to buy it. I have yet to regret my decision. The pictures come out very clear, crisp colors. Very easy to use, menus are straight forward, battery life is AWESOME!! I bought the camera a month ago, have used it several times and have yet the need to charge the battery. This camera is definitely worth the money.
Buy Casio Exilim EX-Z75 7.2MP Digital Camera with 3x Anti Shake Optical Zoom (Black) Now
I got this for my 16 year old daughter just before her team trip to DisneyWorld. She has since taken 43,000 pics....or something close to that. She loves it...it comes in different colors....fits in her purse....she has ZERO complaints. This is her first camera just for her....but the fourth if you count family cameras that she took over.....she constantly had issues with every other camera for one reason or another. We shopped together and she picked this one....Price has continued to drop since I bought this last spring....and I say it is still worth the price.Ok, I had been looking for a high quality 7.2MP pocket sized camera. I researched all over the web and read reviews and consumer reports and found that this camera had great ratings. I always have to see for myself, so I bought this camera as a high ranked, highly reviewed, top of the mountain product. When I got the camera home I noticed that Casio packaged this camera very nicely. The camera is very sturdy and well made, feels like quality in your hands. I charged the NP20 battery, placed it and a 1GB SD card in the camera and have had a hard time putting it down. This camera takes beautiful pictures and very nice video. Small and light weight this camera is like putting a credit card in your pocket. (Just make sure you don't sit on it) I take this camera with me on vacation and anywhere I don't want to take my DSLR. Buy it and you will be pleased.Want Casio Exilim EX-Z75 7.2MP Digital Camera with 3x Anti Shake Optical Zoom (Black) Discount?
UPDATEThere are some newer cameras out there that use bigger lenses, unbelievable processing techniques, and lenslet arrays in front of the sensor to get more light on those pixels. The upshot is, that if you want a camera that just takes the best picture possible indoors in a pocket point and shoot, you will be very happy for example with a Sony Cybershot DSC-WX1, but you'll have to shell out $329. Nevertheless, in 2010, it makes this Casio look like about the least expensive camera around.
OVERVIEW
Up until the past year, if you wanted a better picture in low-light conditions, you needed a bigger sensor and a bigger lens. That typically meant a digital SLR. This past year, Nikon, Sony and Canon have shown that several short duration pictures can be taken, and stitched together to effectively increase the exposure time without the blur from handheld jitter. If you have $350 to spend, consider the Sony Cybershot DSC-WX1 or TX1.
But this Casio is an average to low-end compact camera, and has some nice features and takes good pictures. But like any compact camera designed in 2007, more than 2-3 megapixels clearly resolved is not really possible except in the brightest sunlit conditions. If you look closely, they are going to be grainy and blurry. Some compact cameras are better than others at disguising the grain and blur with aggressive processing to punch up the colors and contrast and sharpness. But if you look really close, you'll see that it is really not much better than 3 megapixels. However, in 2010, the new DSC-TX7 challenges that assumption. See test photos compared to the Exilim Z75 here:Beyond that, this camera does nice snapshots, especially if the light is good. Videos are very nice and high quality, but not HD. Once you figure out the menus and modes, this camera is great if you are looking for a small camera and that's more important than professional quality photos.
The LCD viewscreen does not show sharp images, and it's annoying, but it does not affect picture quality.
If you want to take a lot of pictures under low light conditions (indoors), get used to the idea of a bigger camera than this, or the above mentioned Cybershot. Or settle on fewer pixels.
You should know that the "anti shake" mode of this is simply a mode that pushes the effective ISO up. That means that it takes an underexposed picture and processes it to be brighter. Of course, it's going to be grainy and noisy. Most other compact cameras in this price range do this same trick. (But the somewhat larger Canon A570IS has true optical anti-shake.)
A lot of people have had problems with getting a camera with a dead battery. If these lithium batteries sit around too long, they discharge too far to recover. Call Casio service immediately and tell them you got a new camera with a dead battery. There is a good chance they will replace it. My battery failed after about one year or so.
DETAILED REVIEW
I got the Exilim Z75 from Amazon, and it arrived in about a week.
The battery charged right up (about 90 minutes) and the camera worked as soon as I loaded the battery and a memory card. I guess I was lucky to get a good battery.
After using the camera for a several months and uploading pictures and movies, I think it is a great little camera. In bright light it rivals the pictures from my Fujifilm 7000, a much larger point and shoot. But with backlit scenes, the lens has more flare, and the images are more grainy.
If you think you need to take indoor pictures in full 7 megapixel resolution and they should come out crystal clear and sharp when blown up to 100% (zoomed way in on your computer,) you need to read the next 4 numbered paragraphs. Otherwise, skip all the technical explanation and go to "WHAT CASIO COULD HAVE DONE BETTER."
Please note that I am an electro-optical physicist and I know the limitations that some buyers may not be prepared for. Let me state some of those:
1. To put 7.2 million pixels into such a tiny space means the pixels will be very small and the smaller they are, the less light they will receive especially indoors. Since the sensor is pretty much limited by photon statistics, (meaning the noise of the photon arrival itself is the limit, not the camera) the graininess in the picture is not something that is really the camera's fault. If you want 7.2 million pixels in a tiny camera, please be aware that it is not going to perform better than a 3 million pixel tiny camera except in very bright sunlight. You might also want to be aware that the tiny pixels tend to scatter some light to adjacent pixels, further reducing the sharpness of the picture. Also note that for this tiny lens, 5 megapixels is very close the the diffraction limit the laws of physics say you need a bigger lens to do any better. Or, you need to put lenslets in front of each pixel to gather more light.
2. With such a small sensor, the lens needs to be very short focal length. This means that it is not really very practical to make a lens that is going to be much larger diameter. In most cases the lens is limited to a diameter about half the focal length or less.
3. If you really want 7.2 million meaningful pixels, you are going to need a sensor at least 4 times as large, with a lens about four times the area and twice the length. However, there are new techniques introduced in 2009 that partially address this problem. If this is important to you, consider a newer camera.
4. 7.2 million pixels is more than you could get from any 35mm film SLR without noticeable fuzziness and graininess. Even low speed, fine grain film. I know, I have tens of thousands of negatives in 35 mm format, taken with a very decent f/1.4 lens.
WHAT CASIO COULD HAVE DONE BETTER
1. The LCD viewer does not display a sharpened image. This gives the impression of a blurry picture, but it is actually not. If you blow it up, it is reasonably detailed and sharp.
2. The movie and sound recording modes are accessed through "Best Shot." This is counter-intuitive, but once you learn where it is, it is no problem.
3. The flash is weak (but similar to other small cameras), forcing the camera to take a noisier (grainier) photo in flash mode than would otherwise be necessary. The trade off to get a brighter flash would have been greatly reduced battery life, and most people do not like that. However, newer cameras make up for this with better sensors and processing.
4. The battery is a little harder to handle than it needs to be and there is no mechanical interlock to make sure it can't be inserted the wrong way. So you have to watch carefully what you are doing every time you handle the battery. (But be aware that to have a slim camera, you need a slim battery.)
6. It is not as thin as other ("S" series) Exilim cameras.
7. There is no light for aiding the focus function as in the Canon Elph.
8. There is no Panorama stitching function.
9. Like most cameras, it does not come with a case.
10. The included 8 MB of memory is slow.
11. The battery charger has a long cable. The Canon charger has no cable at all and is easy to carry.
12. That big LCD on the back has a glass window over it. But there is no way to replace the glass if you scratch it up.
13. The USB connector doubles as an audio-visual connector. I have never used the audio-visual output on ANY camera myself. But the drawback is that the USB connector is not standard, so you will need to make sure you do not lose the cable.
14. The lens is so-so. There is not bad barrel or pincushion distortion, but there is some purple fringing near the edges of the frame if you blow the image up enough, you'll see it. This is seen on high contrast objects like small back-lit tree branches against a bright sky. The most common failure mode of these cameras is that the lens fails to open or retract properly. It is operated by a tiny little motor with tiny plastic gears and cams, but should it ever accidentally get turned on so the lens can not open all the way, kiss the camera goodbye.
WHAT I LIKE
1. I can easily turn the flash off or set it to soft. This saves battery life and lets me be less noticeable when taking pictures.
2. I can turn the camera on in play mode without having the lens cycle. Simply press the play button to turn it on.
3. It can record sound for each picture.
4. The movie quality is great, and playback on the LCD is very good.
5. After some initial reluctance, I was brought over to the "Best Shot" approach.
6. The lens has a nice little built-in cap so the lens is protected when not in use.
7. The case is all solid metal and feels rock solid.
8. The pictures are easily uploaded to a Windows OS without any proprietary software. The camera looks like a memory-drive to the computer.
9. There is a tripod threaded mount hole.
10. The flash charges pretty quickly (that's because it doesn't have much power, of course.)
11. You can usually get a decent picture even if you skip the "Best Shot"
12. In bright sunlight, the pictures are gorgeous. If you manually set it to ISO 50 for this, the shots can not be beat in a compact camera.
SUMMARY
It's a great inexpensive camera to have handy. It's not going to replace my FinePix S7000, and if I had a Cybershot, I would get rid of the Exilim, but it's well worth having around. It takes good pictures as long as you don't try to take them in too much darkness. Maybe for some people it would have been better to for Casio to program the camera to just blink "NOT ENOUGH LIGHT" when the conditions are too dark. That way it would be harder to take a bad picture. But I don't like the camera to tell me I can't take a picture, so I am willing to live with some pictures that are too fuzzy. It's better than no picture at all sometimes. So it's a good camera for the money, but it isn't going to be giving a digital SLR any competition.
Alternatives: If you really like the thin cameras, go for the Exilim "S" series. If you would like a sharper LCD screen, seriously consider the Canon Elph series. If you can accept a slightly larger camera, consider the Canon Powershot A570IS. It is in the same price range and even has optical anti-shake, and the pixels are somewhat less grainy and a little more sharp. And it uses AA batteries. If you have $300 go for the Sony DSC-WX1, or DSC-TX1
No comments:
Post a Comment